DOI issue:
No. 190 (December, 1912)
DOI article:Du Bois, Guy Pène: The annual exhibition of the Society of Illustrators
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43451#0405
Exhibition of the Society of Illustrators
“the iconoclast”
BY J. CLEMENT COLL
tween the playwright and the actor. One of these
holds strings to the despotic tugs, of which the
other must answer. The first gets his inspiration
from nature, and the second must fashion his
impressions after that inspiration.
That is the theoretical significance of illustrat-
ing. It is to be battled with in practice and its
error proved often as not. Actors have saved
plays, just as illustrators have made books. And
again the two have run hand in hand very prettily.
I am thinking of Dickens and Cruikshank, “Alice
in Wonderland” and Sir John Tenniel. Either of
these is better for the presence of the other.
Keene and Leach illustrated a time and a
people rather than a book about them. That is
true of Glackens and Sloan, who, by the way, as
painters, along with Robert Henri, Maurice Pren-
dergast, George Luks and Arthur B. Davies were
first brought prominently before the public eye
(January, 1904), through the agency of the
National Arts Club’s galleries—and Gibson.
The last is represented here by three character-
istic pictures. They are honestly and ably exe-
cuted. They tell a story of life that is accurate
and just. Mr. Gibson has been classed as a
painter of pretty pictures, and has had, for that
reason, a rather scornful finger pointed at him.
He deserved neither the scorn nor the classifica-
tion. If I were to attack him at all I should argue
that he drowns artistic and, that is, personal ex-
pression in accuracy; that he shows too much
fidelity to superficial fact. That is a common fault
among our facile portrait painters, who paint shells
of people and do not bother to illuminate them with
the light from the lamps that keep them alive.
One of our old masters of illustrating—Arthur
I. Kellar—is here with five contributions so ably
executed, so full of technical brilliancy, of learning
in the value of accent and contrast, in the animat-
ing power of spirited brush work, that one wonders
if he might not make dancing compositions with-
out the introduction of solid figures. He has a
sense of color, that intuitive feeling for values that
“the iconoclast” by j. clement coll
XLI
“the iconoclast”
BY J. CLEMENT COLL
tween the playwright and the actor. One of these
holds strings to the despotic tugs, of which the
other must answer. The first gets his inspiration
from nature, and the second must fashion his
impressions after that inspiration.
That is the theoretical significance of illustrat-
ing. It is to be battled with in practice and its
error proved often as not. Actors have saved
plays, just as illustrators have made books. And
again the two have run hand in hand very prettily.
I am thinking of Dickens and Cruikshank, “Alice
in Wonderland” and Sir John Tenniel. Either of
these is better for the presence of the other.
Keene and Leach illustrated a time and a
people rather than a book about them. That is
true of Glackens and Sloan, who, by the way, as
painters, along with Robert Henri, Maurice Pren-
dergast, George Luks and Arthur B. Davies were
first brought prominently before the public eye
(January, 1904), through the agency of the
National Arts Club’s galleries—and Gibson.
The last is represented here by three character-
istic pictures. They are honestly and ably exe-
cuted. They tell a story of life that is accurate
and just. Mr. Gibson has been classed as a
painter of pretty pictures, and has had, for that
reason, a rather scornful finger pointed at him.
He deserved neither the scorn nor the classifica-
tion. If I were to attack him at all I should argue
that he drowns artistic and, that is, personal ex-
pression in accuracy; that he shows too much
fidelity to superficial fact. That is a common fault
among our facile portrait painters, who paint shells
of people and do not bother to illuminate them with
the light from the lamps that keep them alive.
One of our old masters of illustrating—Arthur
I. Kellar—is here with five contributions so ably
executed, so full of technical brilliancy, of learning
in the value of accent and contrast, in the animat-
ing power of spirited brush work, that one wonders
if he might not make dancing compositions with-
out the introduction of solid figures. He has a
sense of color, that intuitive feeling for values that
“the iconoclast” by j. clement coll
XLI